kaolin fire presents :: writing :: fiction

"UpTime"

words

"Good night, Doctor Anderson. Later, we will speak." A hazy form walked out of the room, shutting the light from the hall, leaving him to his thoughts.

Speak, eak, eak... The word echoed endlessly, weaving in and out of his throbbing headache like an Escheristic dream. It seemed like it was getting fainter and fainter but always at any given instant was just as solid and painful as his recollection of moments before.

What could he recollect? Up time. Lots of up time. He couldn't remember what sleep was like. Not even as a student in college had he ever been this far gone. How many days had he been awake? Was he sure it was mere days? The room was perpetually dark but he could remember a line of meals being dragged in to him. He could place thirteen distinct meals in the space/time of his mind, but everything was so fragmented they could conceivably be shards of the same memory spiking methodically like a pendulum spurring on his headache.

He hadn't had a headache in years. Had he been hit on the head? Reawakened rope burns jarred his attempt at phrenology but added pictures to his kaleidoscopic slide show. A large black van. A fire, burning blue and green. A chemical fire. Stairs. His assistant going to check on something. Needing to go to the bathroom. Eating. Bottles breaking. A shot in the neck. Drugs? His experiment. Falling to his knees, with a great pain in his head. His headache? No, different... His headache was too far forward, the right frontal lobe. He had been sapped from behind: he could still feel a slight dull ache from that, but could find nothing to connect with the pounding at his temple. It was probably from the stress of the situation. Where was he?

Obviously someone had kidnapped him. For what, though? He wasn't rich, and didn't have rich family. Hell, you couldn't really even say he had a family. A brother, somewhere. The only thing he had was his research, which wasn't so bad. That was all he'd worried about since adolesence anyway. What about his research? Eddie had said something about hearing some noises coming from the back of the lab. He wondered what had happened to Eddie, and hoped he was all right. Eddie hadn't even had a chance to shout that something was wrong.

He could tell that the pull of the Up was wearing off. Just. Vague tendrils of night pulled at his eyelids, testing him. Without the slightest hesitation, he gave himself over to dreamless sleep.

* * *

"Ah. Doctor Anderson. You have slept. That is good. Perhaps now we can talk reasonably."

Only yet half awake, he pulled his head up to look at the man who was speaking to him. He scratched out a hesitant acknowledgement, and jumped a little at his own voice. How long had it been since he'd spoken? "How long?"

"What does it feel like, Doctor Anderson? How long do you think you have been here?"

"Da -- no, weeks." He pulled on threads of memory in an effort to seem more in control of himself. "Thirteen days."

"My, an excellent guess. And not even completely wrong. Tell me. How do you feel about your position?"

His strength was slowly returning to him, his body fighting to replenish itself after a long period of effectual disease. "How am I supposed to feel? I'd be fucking crazy to say that I liked it. Someone playing with my mind making it so that I have to struggle to remember one instant to the next, and even that accomplished I can't put them together in the proper order? Could I possible like or even appreciate what you have done for me? What sort of response could you possibly be looking for?"

"Ah, that is exactly what I expected to hear. Now, let's not make hypocrites out of ourselves. This is exactly what I wanted you to understand. Understand your fear, even, that lies behind your angry words. This madman could kill you. You don't know. You have no control over your situation. Someone is feeding you, sticking needles in you, dictating whether you live or die. For what purpose? To be honest I am doing this for you. For you and every other research scientist that doesn't yet understand. What I am doing to you is being done wholesale without thought in thousands of little, brightly lit white rooms. Except far, far less humane what you do than I. What now do you have to say in your defense? I shall listen, and respond as I see need."

"You mean, for instance, lab rats? You're comparing me with a lab rat? I'll admit, our situations are somewhat similar, except that a rat is at least free to run around in its cage. But the difference in potentialities! I'm a scientist, for God's sake. A rat is a rat. They don't do more with their lives than mate and die. They have no legacy, no posterity. What does it matter to them whether they mate and die in my cage or their own self-imposed fortress in the wilderness? Hell, I treat my animals well. They have free run of large areas of the lab, the best food I can find, treats every weekend. And in exchange for room and board we study them, and study how things affect them. We even let them go when we are through with them!"

"You seem to hold to your beliefs firmly. All I ask is that you think some about what you have been through. And now, I am through with you, and I will let you go. Is that not painless? Is that not humane? Have you not already forgiven me, with complete and utter disregard for your time spent here, being 'studied'? Alas, I am afraid that your lab rats, from what you say, have far surpassed what I guess your tolerance for forgiving is. Fare thee well, Doctor. Enjoy one last meal on us. A weekend treat?"

With that, the form chuckled to himself, and calmly walked out the door, being replaced immediately by someone carrying a tray of food. It smelled wondrous. He thought over what the man had said, but could find nothing firm to argue on. Some people had strong beliefs one way or another. One thing was certain: he would see to stepping up security at the lab. This was not going to happen again.

Slowly he drifted off, barely registering that the food must have been drugged.

* * *

Bright. Everything was too bright. Even when he shut his eyes the world still glared neon sending his headache into drive-bys of frenzy. He shook his head trying to get away from the noise and the pain, but only made it worse as a new pain shot from his ear. Timidly, he reached towards his ear. A day-glo orange airline tag dangled bloodily. A decent sized hole had been ripped through his lobe to allow the airline tag to be forced through and fastened securely. He thought about finding something to cut it off, but decided that a clearer mind would be better. They'd drugged him again. Overdosed him again. Hadn't they made their point the first time? Was he going to relive that ordeal again?

No. They'd tagged him, and let him go. Of course. How kind. Bracing himself for the pain of his currently overacute senses, he opened his eyes and attempted to get his bearings. Cautiously he pushed himself to his feet. The alley looked vaguely familiar to him. Why would an alley look familiar? He turned around to see the building that he was bracing himself on and realised. Of course. They'd dropped him off safe and sound at home. He started to stumble out of the alley when a surprised voice called out.

"Doctor! Are you all right? What happened to you? How did you get free?"

Eddie's voice pounded mallet-like harder and harder onto his skull. He tried to wave off Eddie's attempts at helping him, but that wound up hurting even more than just riding along with the current. "Quiet. Please."

Eddie obligingly and obediently quelled his questions, and guided him into the lobby as painlessly as he could. With a lowered voice, Eddie asked, "Should I call an ambulance for you?"

A hospital would be the perfect place to recuperate. Silent and restful. "Yes. Please." The clinking of glassware and mummed conversations lay heavily upon him. There was too much of everything. Glumly, he tried to decide what he wanted to do for the next week or two until it wore off. Maybe solitaire? By the end, he wouldn't even be able to notice whether he was cheating himself or not. Or a quaint little book. Something fluffy, that would allow for attention sliding directly through it without accumulating the previous pages.

Eddie interrupted his silent reverie, and helped him towards a waiting ambulance. Orderlies jumped out with a cot, which he lay down upon, cursing in his head at every slight jolt that they made though he was sure that they lifted and carried him as cleanly as humanly possible. When one of the orderlies attempted to put a mask over his face, he slapped it away. "No. It could be harmful."

The orderly took this in stride, and in a kind but detached voice asked, "What are you allergic to?"

Eddie crawled in the back of the ambulance and began to explain the drug, and why it could be unhealthy to induce artificial sleep. "He's been subjected to something we are working on at the lab. I understand that you are professionals, but we can't have exactly what it is leaking out. Can we trust you?"

The two orderlies looked at each other and shrugged, somewhat amused by the Top Secret look that Eddie had on his face as well as curious. One of the orderlies shut the door, and the ambulance started up, unhurriedly. Eddie continued.

"In the lab, we call it 'Up'. It removes the need for sleep. Of course there are problems with that, even in theory, such as the effects it will have on aging, time perception, and the like. And on top of that we are nowhere near perfecting it. What we have at the moment is a much blunter instrument than the precision we hope to achieve. Do you understand basically what the body goes through during sleep? How it purges itself of certain 'poisons', cleaning itself out, healing itself, and such?"

The orderlies nodded, tending their patient with the absent care of much training and experience. They had removed the airline tag, dolloped antiseptic which blossomed him with pain, and then gauzed up the ear, which left him with a muffled ache.

"Well, we first tracked down the hormones that were released during sleep to this end. We followed those back to where they came from, and so on, until we knew exactly which receptors on the hippocampus to excite and which to inhibit. What Up does is exactly what your mind does when asleep, but spread out. It lasts longer, with lesser excitation and inhibition values."

"So you see, we really don't know what forcing someone to sleep while they were on it would do. It could likely cause a coma. Do you have any questions directly relating to Doctor Anderson's care?" With a negative affirmation from them, Eddie knelt down beside the patient, and clasped a hand lightly over his shoulder.

"How are you feeling?"

"Not too bad at the moment." He grimaced as the ambulance hit a slight pothole. "My ear is throbbing dully, and I'm getting a sensory overload that seems to be causing a very solid headache in my right frontal lobe, just about an inch under the surface." A slight grin. "So, how's your day?"

"We've been worried about you. The police have been snooping all around trying to get some lead on where you had been taken or who had taken you. It's a wonderful thing that the people who took you let you go."

"Yeah. Wonderful." A slight glimmer of self-pity mingled with anger, frustration, and confusion tinged his voice.

"Well... Tell me what your week was like! What have you been up to?"

He slowly explained to Eddie what he had been through. He did his best to recall and relate the area he had been in, his somewhat daily schedule, and his final converstation, which had left him stunned and tagged in the alley. He also detailed what the drug had done to his mind, both his memory and his thought processes.

"Wow. An animal rights group? Got you? You're the nicest white-coat I ever met. Man, did they get the wrong guy."

The converstaion carried on to the all the way to his room, where Eddie gracefully bowed out. "Enjoy your stay, and get better, right? In a week or two, you'll be back and able to wrap up Up, right?"

He tried to make himself comfortable in the bed where he had been placed, and asked an orderly to turn off the light on his way out.

* * *

"Hello? This is Eddie. Yeah, you were brilliant. He doesn't have a clue. I've pretty much made my name on this drug. By the time he's out of the hospital, I should have finished my final results. And not a single animal has been used. Well, besides old Doc of course. You know, it's a lot easier using a person, anyway. They can talk back. He told me pretty much everything I'd been wondering about on the way to the hospital. Really. In any case, I just wanted to let you know I kept my part of the bargain and to thank you for your help in this as well. Stay in touch."